


Reversal

by shellikybookie



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, literal mindfuck, questionable use of telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 19:53:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1577486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellikybookie/pseuds/shellikybookie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik encourages Charles not to neglect his own training, but this isn't exactly what he had in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/6084.html?thread=8075972#t8075972) on the 1stclass_kink comm

“Ready?” Erik asks.

“Not really,” Charles answers with a self-deprecating smile. He’d never really been one for sports, even at school, but he supposes that if they are all training, he should make some sort of effort himself. They’d rigged a rudimentary gymnasium in the second drawing room. He thinks it must have been Raven’s idea. There are punching bags, jump ropes, weights of varying sizes - all things Cain left behind which neither Charles nor Raven wanted anything to do with. It’s good that they’re getting some use now, Charles supposes, though he would just as soon have left them to collect dust in some forgotten corner of the house.

It was Erik who suggested wrestling, and at first, Charles thought he was joking. “With you?” he’d said. “Rolling around on the mat? Are you serious?” He had expected Erik to make some clever reply, or possibly even to suggest a more pleasant – and private – venue, but to his surprise, Erik was entirely serious. “You’re too soft, Charles,” Erik had said. “You need to be able to defend yourself.” Charles considered pointing out that he was perfectly capable of defending himself without lifting a finger, and besides, Erik had never seemed to mind his softness before, but he’d thought that Erik might possibly have a point.

The first round is exactly as one-sided as Charles feared it would be. Erik pins him with embarrassing ease, and Charles has two simultaneous thoughts – one, that he’s glad there is no one else around to witness it, and two, that maybe he _is_ a little too soft after too many years of lifting nothing heavier than a textbook. Erik lets him up, and Charles laughs a little self-consciously. “Well, that was humbling,” he says, but Erik doesn't smile back. “You’re not even trying,” he accuses, and Charles protests, “I assure you, I am.” Not that it makes much difference. But, as he clambers back to his feet, Erik only makes a ‘come on, then’ gesture, and Charles sighs a little because they’re going to go again. Charles has never claimed to be precognizant, but he already knows it’s going to play out exactly the same way. 

After three more similar rounds, they’re both getting impatient. Charles is trying to be a good sport, but he’s sure he’s going to have bruises in the morning, and Erik seems to be taking each victory, inexplicably, as some kind of personal slight. The next time they go to it, Charles actually does manage to knock Erik down, but he has only a moment of elation before Erik’s fist is slamming into his face, and he’s on his back again. 

Charles rolls onto his side, and pushes himself up onto his knees on the mat. He puts a hand to his face, sure that he’s going to feel blood dripping from his nose, but there isn't any. He knows that Erik pulled the punch. Erik is watching him now with something that might be concern or only expectation, and Charles wishes he were bleeding just a little so that Erik might feel guilty. “You hit me!” he says, with what he thinks is entirely justifiable offence. “What did you do that for?”

“Because you thought I wouldn't,” Erik answers with a sort of logic that makes Charles want to punch _him_ just a little bit – the same sort of logic involved in pushing young men off of high ledges without warning. But if Erik is expecting him to fly, he is going to be disappointed.

“This is ridiculous!” Charles says, getting to his feet. “This is never going to work. The size advantage alone – ”

But Erik cuts him off impatiently. “You’re a telepath, Charles. You have your own advantages, but you don’t use them.”

”You know I would never…” Charles says, and Erik says, “I know. You want to play fair, Charles, but you can’t because our enemies won’t. This isn't a game, and we aren't going to be shaking hands over the board at the end.”

Charles wants to protest that he isn't as naïve as Erik thinks he is, but most days, he still finds it hard to believe that he could _have_ enemies. It’s all so very dramatic, he thinks. These things don’t happen in real life. But the reality is cruel. Already, their small band has become smaller, and Charles knows there is worse to come. Erik knows it, too, and Charles reminds himself that that is why they are here together, that Erik, in his way, is trying to help, even if his methods leave something to be desired.

“All right,” Charles says, and faces off against Erik again.

 

 

  
Erik opens his eyes. He’s lying in bed, and he thinks, ‘ _No, that isn't right_ ,’ but already the dream that had woken him, whatever it had been, is receding. Beside him, Charles shifts, curling against Erik’s side, and Erik says, “I thought you’d left,” because he doesn't remember falling asleep next to Charles last night. He doesn't, usually. They can never be too careful.

“Good morning to you, too,” Charles replies wryly.

“No, I – ” Erik begins apologetically, but Charles says, “I know,” with a smile and a kiss, and there is no more talking for several minutes. But when Charles’ fingers start to tease at the waistband of Erik’s pyjamas, and finally sneak beneath it, Erik stops him. “The others,” he says, who will be stirring at this hour, wandering down to the kitchen, and wondering why Erik and the professor are still in bed.

“Asleep,” Charles says just as he wraps his hand firmly around Erik’s cock.

Erik’s protests die on a shivering sigh.

 

“ – asleep?”

Erik’s eyes snap open. He’s sitting in his usual chair in the library across from Charles, and Charles is looking expectantly at him over the chessboard. He’s said something, and Erik realises that he has no idea what it was. He also realises, with some embarrassment, that he has an erection. He crosses his legs, hoping that Charles hasn't noticed. He feels strangely disoriented, like he could have sworn that, only a moment ago, he was somewhere else. “I'm sorry… what?” he says, because Charles is still looking at him.

“I asked if you were asleep,” Charles repeats with a smile that is fond, but just amused enough to make Erik think, with a little annoyance, that Charles is mocking him. “It’s your move,” Charles says, “but if you’re tired… if you would rather call it a night…”

Erik scrubs a hand across his eyes, and he says, “I'm sorry, I must have drifted off for a moment. I don’t know. I thought I was… I don’t know.”

“We can go to bed, if you’d like,” Charles offers, and Erik doesn't think Charles means anything by it, but his body seems to have other ideas, and is reminding him uncomfortably. He shifts surreptitiously in his chair, but he should know better than to think that anything will escape Charles’s notice.

“Must have been a good dream,” Charles remarks with that unrepentantly flirtatious smile of his which makes Erik answer, “It was getting to be.”

“Well, I'm sorry I woke you, in that case,” Charles grins. “I feel I should make it up to you, really.”

“What did you have in mind?” Erik asks, though he hardly needs to because Charles is already crossing to him. Charles’ hands are on his knees, easing them apart, and making a space for himself between them. Erik has the presence of mind, at least, to reach out with his power and turn the lock on the library door before Charles has him in his mouth.

Erik chokes back a gasp as Charles takes him in as far as he’ll go, and only Charles’ hands braced on his spread thighs keep his hips from jerking upwards. “ _Warn_ a man,” he says raggedly, and Charles’ lips curve slyly around their fullness.

‘ _You’re always telling me to take advantage of the element of surprise_ ,’ Charles’ teasing voice sounds dryly in Erik’s head.

“This isn't a tactical assault,” Erik murmurs aloud, and receives an answering wave of heat from Charles that slides over his synapses.

‘ _It is when I do it_.’

Erik can’t argue.

Charles’ tongue is clever even when it’s silent – now teasing, now demanding. He knows just how much pressure to apply, knows just when the barest threat of teeth would be a welcome thrill. He knows precisely the moment when “just right” becomes “too much”. Erik doesn't know if it’s telepathy or practice that lets Charles play his body this way, and he doesn't care to know. The pulsing coil of heat in his belly winds tighter as he watches his cock slide in and out of Charles’ mouth, his luscious lips red and glistening with Erik’s precome.

Charles pulls back by slow inches, and Erik’s fingers slide into his hair. Charles looks up at him through lowered lashes, his eyes gone dark with arousal; he is watching Erik watch him.

‘ _Let me show you_ ,’ Erik thinks. ‘ _Let me show you what you look like_ ,’ and he fumbles clumsily towards Charles’ mind.

Charles lets out a low moan that almost has Erik coming right then, and Erik’s vision goes white around the edges – too bright, like an overexposed photograph.

“Don’t,” Charles says. “Let me – “

Erik feels a weight pressing him down. Charles’ weight, he thinks, but Charles is...

… Charles is sitting astride Erik’s hips, and there is a moment of vertigo where Erik wonders when that happened, and he becomes aware of the firmness of the rubber mat under his back. The lamp-lit intimacy of the library dissolves around them, and Erik is left blinking in confusion, staring up at Charles’ grinning face.

“You almost threw me, there, at the last minute,” Charles says, sounding pleased with himself and Erik as well. “I wasn't expecting that.”

“Get off me,” Erik says, his disorientation dissipating quickly as he recalls his surroundings and their circumstances, now that his senses aren't feeding him false information.

“Don’t you mean ‘get me off’?” Charles replies archly, shifting his weight on top of Erik in a way that leaves him shivering and burning with shame.

“Get off!” Erik heaves his body upwards, throwing Charles off easily, but rather than pinning him in turn, Erik scrambles backwards and onto his feet, putting distance between them again.

Charles stays where he is, sprawled on the mat and looking slightly offended. “All right. If you aren't in the mood, you only had to say,” he says a little peevishly, as the grey tracksuits they are both wearing do very little to conceal the fact that Erik is very much “in the mood”.

But Erik’s expression says otherwise. It is guarded - suspicious and resentful - and Charles feels his own measure of resentment arising. “This was your idea,” he reminds Erik pointedly.

“I didn't think – … I didn't mean – “ Erik starts to speak curtly, and stops himself.

It had been his idea, but this isn't at all what he’d had in mind. He had expected an assault: pain, fear, his worst memories used against him like Shaw’s pet telepath had done aboard the _Caspartina_ , and he’d been prepared to deal with that – eager, even, to prove to himself that he isn't a child who cowers at old nightmares – but he should have known that Charles would never use such brutally decisive tactics, no matter how effective they are. Still, Erik can’t shake the image from his mind of the Russian General writhing and moaning alone on his bed like a fool while Emma Frost looked on with cold contempt.

“I'm not her,” Charles says, and Erik doesn't know if Charles is in his head still, or if the turn of his thoughts is just that obvious. Charles had been there too, after all.

“I could never do that to you, my friend. I could never violate you that way,” Charles continues to say with such sincerity that Erik despairs of him, but his anger dies down to ashes.

“I know,” he answers, which is as close to an apology as he can bring himself right now.

Charles hears the intent and doesn't press him for more. He’s too forgiving, Erik thinks. “I'm sorry if I hurt you,” Erik says, because that is easier.

“Just my pride,” Charles replies with a carelessly affected shrug, and he adds, “And my face,” because even though Erik had pulled his punch, there might be a bruise to explain tomorrow. “But it’s nothing a little ice and a little brandy won’t fix. Would you care to join me? I think we've had enough training for one day, don’t you?”

Erik hesitates, uncertain if he is being rebuked, and equally certain that he deserves to be, but Charles’ smile is open and inviting.

“Yes,” he answers. “I’d like that.”


End file.
